New News

September 19, 2017

Hello folks,

Long time no update eh?

As you may have noticed from the calendar section of the site, I've been doing a ton of gigs with the Good Shepherd church band over the past months. It's been my main guitar playing outlet for the past year or so, and I'm grateful for the opportunity. Playing with a band has made me a better guitar player. I've had the opportunity to play both electric and acoustic guitar with the worship band. I've not really played electric guitar since playing with the Kipps back in 2009 or so. And, prior to the Kipps, it was probably high school when I really played electric guitar much. One of the first things I realized in picking the electric back up was how insufficient my gear was.

Generally, at church we're playing a silent stage and so I needed gear that would allow for me to play with no amplifier. After some brief research, I picked up a Tech 21 Fly Rig to run direct to the board. I like it so far and continue to tweak the sound each week that I use it. It's pretty versatile and offers a good reverb sound that seems pretty necessary when it comes to worship band electric guitar sound. It also has a delay channel with tap function that is also useful in a worship setting. The delay section allows for a cool chorus effect by dialing down the repeats and time functions, but it does require tweaking mid-service which is inconvenient. I'm not a big fan of having to crouch down and change tiny dials between songs, but I'm managing okay.

The folks that play in the band at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Moorhead, MN are fantastic. I think there are about 25 or so players in any given week between the wednesday evening or sunday morning services. Everyone is easygoing and fun to hang with. I'm grateful for the opportunity to play with good people each week.

I've generally not been a big fan of "cheer leading for jesus" music that is often associated with contemporary christian worship. My last adventure playing in a church band was in college at Concordia as the guitarist in the temple band some 20 years ago. That too was a great group of people to play with and though the type of music we we're playing brought a bit of discomfort, I was happy to play music with like-minded people. Things have changed in contemporary christian music since my days in the Concordia College Temple Band, but my relative discomfort remains. I'm sure there is another blog post coming diving more deeply into the existential feelings I have about the contemporary christian music I'm a part of these days.

In the meantime, I'm happy to continue playing some solo gigs as well as some Flatlands gigs. Bill and I have welcomed back Brent Thorson into the fold with Flatlands recently. Brent brings another harmony vocal as well as some great percussion to our set. We continue to look for gigs so if you have a need for an acoustic trio with three-part harmonies, we'd love to come and play for you. Shoot an email and we can chat about dates.

Thanks to you who read this - I have no idea if anyone is checking this out or not. I've been horrible at keeping up on what's going on. Like other posts, I'll reiterate that I'm hoping to keep things more current. Send a message if you've read this as that'll give me some sense of whether or not folks are looking.